1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling beverage bottles with a liquid beverage filling material, and a method for the operation thereof as described herein below, as well as a device that is suitable for the performance of the method.
2. Background Information
A beverage bottling plant for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling bottles with liquid beverage filling material. The filling devices may have an apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined volume of liquid beverage filling material into the interior of bottles to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage filling material. The apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material further comprises an apparatus that is designed to terminate the filling of the beverage bottles upon the liquid beverage filling material reaching the predetermined level in bottles. There may also be provided a conveyer arrangement that is designed to move bottles, for example, from an inspecting machine to the filling machine. Upon filling, a closing station closes the filled bottles. There may further be provided a conveyer arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the filling machine to the closing station. Bottles may be labeled in a labeling station, the labeling station having a conveyer arrangement to receive bottles and to output bottles. The closing station and the labeling station may be connected by a corresponding conveyer arrangement.
In the beverage industry, especially when bottling highly perishable products, it is customary to treat them. In treatment plants of the prior art, the containers with the products are conveyed in a practically uniform and continuous movement from the entry area to the exit area. During this movement, they are heated until they have absorbed the desired number of treatment units, then cooled, whereupon the treatment process is ended. A treatment tunnel provided for the purpose consequently has a heating section, a superheating and treatment section, and a subsequent cooling section. The individual sections can have additional sub-zones. The gradual heating and cooling thereby achieved is preferred in particular for the glass beverage bottles used in the beverage industry, to avoid the destruction of the glass beverage bottles by abrupt temperature changes. The transfer of heat to the product contained in the beverage bottles is normally achieved by spraying said containers with water as they are moved along on a conveyor belt which allows the sprayed liquid to pass through from below. Underneath the conveyor belt are catch basins for the sprayed fluid, from which the pumps used for the spraying are fed. Between the heating and cooling sections, heat can be exchanged with the sprayed liquid in the individual zones.
To achieve an optimum graduation of the temperatures in the individual sections, the sections are divided appropriately. Generally, the “heating” section has three to four individual zones, the treatment section has two or three zones, and an additional superheating zone can also be provided upstream of the treatment zone. The subsequent “cooling” section in turn has three to four individual zones in which the containers are cooled to the desired exit temperature by decreasing the temperature of the sprayed liquid in steps.
The spray temperatures that are set at any given time are adjusted so that they are appropriate to the product, the length of the zones and the speed of the conveyor belt to ensure that the product in the beverage bottles achieves the specified degree of treatment.
Consequently, during production operation, the minimum amount of heat that must be supplied to the treatment tunnel is the amount that is necessary to heat the beverage and the containers from their temperature on entry to the temperature on exit, with an intermediate heating to the treatment temperature followed by a cooling.